Unmarked San Bernardino police car fired on, no officers hurt

SAN BERNARDINO >> Police continued their investigation Wednesday into the mystery surrounding shots fired at an unmarked police car at Rancho Avenue and Foothill Boulevard on city’s Westside.

As the officers were not in uniform — and in an unmarked car — it’s not clear if the shooter knew the two men inside the unmarked vehicle were police officers, said Lt. Paul Williams.

“The officers were not injured,” he said Wednesday.

Tuesday’s incident “does not appear to be related to previous incidents, where subjects have attacked officers,” Williams said, in a prepared statement.

Going forward, the investigation is simultaneously pursuing two separate scenarios: “One is that the assailant knew the men in the unmarked car were police officers; one that the gunman did not know he was firing on police.” Williams said.

Officers at the scene, in the 200 block of West Foothill Boulevard on Tuesday night believed shot came from someone inside a car traveling the opposite direction.

Now other scenarios are being explored, Williams said. A bullet struck a tire on the unmarked car, but bounced off it, neither flattening the tire nor penetrating its surface.

“A bullet fired at close range, whether fired by a rifle or a handgun, would have likely have had enough velocity to penetrate the tire, ” he said.

That the bullet bounced off the tire suggests that it was fired from some distance away, Williams said.

A man approached the car on foot when it was parked, but no contact between the officers and the pedestrian occurred, Williams said. It was after the vehicle left the parking spot that shots ensued, he said, but it is unknown if this person had a role in the gunfire.

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After the shooting, the area was cordoned off. Officers searched the area for a vburgundy or maroon Chevy Malibu, officers at the shooting scene said.